Afghanis struggle to police gateway to terror

The motorbikes surge across the border in waves, hundreds of riders in turbans jostling for space in a cloud of milky fumes and a feverish revving of engines. Overwhelmed border guards try to search for explosives or weapons, a fruitless task. After a cursory pat-down of every 10th man the bikes roar through, barrelling down a barbed wire chicane and into Afghanistan. Border officer Khushnay Kaka watches bitterly. "The Pakistanis are trying to send suicide bombers across," he says. "They make a queue of 300 motorbikes and release them all at once. It is impossible for us to check everyone."

Tensions are high at Spin Boldak, a crossing point along the 940-mile border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Long a crossroads for smugglers, traders and tribesmen, it may now be a gateway for Taliban fighters on terrorist missions. In January a suicide bomber on a motorbike ploughed into a crowd at a wrestling match, killing 23 people and wounding 40. Recruits are promised virgins in the next life and as little as $80 (£44) for their relatives in this one.

Afghans claim the militants spring from radical madrassas in Pakistan's northern tribal areas. Pakistani officials say it is impossible to seal a border that Afghans treat with such disdain.

Up to 30,000 people pass through Spin Boldak every day, many with homes and business on both sides. Goods from kettles to contraband are sold from shops built around old cargo containers. Dusty lots are filled with timber and rows of second-hand vehicles at knockdown prices.

At the border, Pakistani guards with rubber hoses whip Afghan travellers into line. Travel documents are optional but bribes are a must. "A donkey cart of goods costs 700 Afghanis (£7.60) but a person can cross for as little as 10 Afghanis (11p)," said Haji Hanif, a self-described petty smuggler.

This is progress of sorts. Cross-border trade has soared from £12m to £815m in five years, according to Pakistan's prime minister. Most goods pass through Spin Boldak and the Khyber Pass, about 300 miles to the northeast. But illicit business is even more profitable.

Shipments of hashish and heroin slip across the border disguised as boxes of black tea said Haji Jan, the deputy highway police chief, at his "headquarters" - an abandoned petrol station on the edge of the desert. But the bigger worry is fired-up fundamentalists headed in the other direction. A US military spokesman warned today yesterday of "significant fighting" in the coming months as more than 10,000 coalition troops step up Operation Mountain Thrust, the largest anti-Taliban drive since 2001.

The impossibility of sealing the border is best appreciated from the gates of Spin Boldak. To the west lies a vast wasteland of red sand and crescent-shaped dunes that stretches into Helmand province where 3,300 British troops are based. To the north-east is Waziristan, the violent Pakistani tribal area and al-Qaida bolthole.

There are also historical pains. After 2001, Pakistani officials pushed the Spin Boldak check post three miles inside Afghanistan - a move that angered Afghans who refuse to recognise the Durand Line, a British colonial boundary dividing the Pashtun homeland in two.

But the Afghan border tribes are also in disarray. The killing of 17 people, allegedly by a senior border police officer, near the border last March has rekindled a centuries-old feud between the Noorzai and Achakzai tribes.

Now Canadian soldiers are retraining the border police, the first 10 of whom graduated last week. "They are taking their job very seriously," said Master Corporal Dan Martineau. "They lack certain skills but make up with a lot of hands-on experience."